James J. Andrews

James J. Andrews (1829-7 June 1862) was a Kentucky civilian who led a unit of Union Army saboteurs in the "Great Locomotive Chase" of 1862, damaging some Confederate States of America railroads before being captured and hanged as a spy.

Biography
James J. Andrews was born in 1829 in Weirton, West Virginia (then known as Holiday's Cove, Virginia). He became a singing coach and house painter in the state of Kentucky, but during the American Civil War he bought contraband. He proposed to General Don Carlos Buell to take eight men and steal a train from the Confederate States of America and take it north, cutting telegraph lines and tearing up railroads as he went. Andrews was a civilian, but he worked with the Union Army on the raid, with the Union troops dressing as civilians and sabotaging the railroads until the train ran out of water and wood. They were forced to run on foot, and they were captured during their escape. Andrews escaped briefly, but he was recaptured and hanged as a spy on 7 June 1862.